kateanfandomcom-20200214-history
Tarrasque
The Tarrasque is an immortal, perpetually regenerating avatar of destruction. In the age of myth, it roamed the continent, lured to settlements and cities, destroying all that mortals had built. The dwarves, gnomes and halflings fled underground and the elves were untouched by it's wrath. The nomadic Ogres could move around it's path of destruction, and so humanity bore the brunt of it. The 9 gods, before their ascension, trapped the abomination alive in a valley, with huge rune-carved chains, and built a fortress around it, constantly carving away at it to make sure that it would never escape. Physiology The tarrasque is a bipedal reptile, measuring at approximately 1.5 miles long from tip to tail, and 0.6 miles tall. It has brown skin, ranging from 6 inches to 12 yards thick, which despite it's constant farming is smooth with no scarring. Protecting its back and tail is a thick, glossy caramel-colored carapace, as well as smaller scale-plates ranging from the size of a cart to a coin. It has spikes coming from its chin, the sides of the mouth, the underside of its neck, the elbows of its front arms, and its shell. The creature also has two horns projecting forwards from the top of its head. It's horns and bones are prized as building materials, it's scales used to make arms and armour. Using the bone and chitin of the tarrasque has become enormously sophisticated in the city and bonemolding has become as advanced as masonry and ironworking in other parts of the world. Meat The most commonly used part of the Tarrasque is the meat; muscle and fat tissue cut out and consumed. Meat comes in many forms the most common of which is stringy basale which is boiled in bulk and literally given away. As such, it is considered the lowest class foodstuff of katean. From there, there is a range of cuts to satisfy every palate and price range from almost fishy osseous to prime, red flank to all the most rarified plates of pth. But of all cuts, the tongue is most valued which is served only to the High Lords, ordained Priests and honored guests. However, there are numerous black-marketeers which claim to sell tongue for exorbitant prices (and at least one who actually does). Katean is a huge exporter of heavily salted jerky which can remain edible for months or even years. Living Leather Not technically ‘alive,’ this specially prepared textile comes from the soft skin around the Tarrasque's joints. It has retained a limited ability to repair from minor scrapes and cuts. Of special note is how this material, it clings to other objects made (or wrapped) in living leather, meaning that such objects can be carried without straps or other bindings (although with the disadvantage that two sheets of living leather left in contact too long will eventually merge together). Before donning living leather, specially designed hanger-spanners are used to stretch it out as otherwise the material will fuse into a condensed ball over time. Clothing made of this material are form fitting to the extreme, and brightly colored bodysuits-clinging to bodies in ways that leave little to the imagination-made of this material are favored by dandies and prostitutes alike. On the other end of the spectrum, dark-dyed clothing made of Living Leather is favored by those who wish to cling to the shadows. Phosphorous katean is a primary supplier of phosphorous for alchemists and others the world over; a supply they produce by boiling huge quantities of Tarrasque Urine (often collected by cutting directly into the beast’s bladder and directing the flow). This phosphorus is used primarily for alchemical weapons and for metallurgical functions, although significant amounts is used as fertilizer for the rare aristocratic gardens which dot the city. Tallow Harvested from around the loins of the Tarrasque, tallow is a common substance traded throughout the city (and beyond). Tallow is primarily used for heating and lighting (torches, lamps, and household stoves) with gasified tallow being used to power some extremely experimental engines and devices created by researchers. Alchemists make finer and more rarefied oils and alcohols from this en masse. Ambergris The most rare and sought after reagent the Tarrasque produces, this waxy yellow substance is used as a base by perfumers or consumed raw as ‘marital aid’ by the wealthiest citizens of Kateannn. Tarrasque Ambergris is worth dozens of times its weight in gold. Horn and bone Low grade Tarrasque horn & bone can be shaped by specialized bonemasons in nearly any application that would commonly call for stone or wood, depending on the bone's hardness and density. Higher grades of osseous matter can be carved by bonesmiths in ways not dissimilar to steel, as these materials exhibit similar hardness, ability to keep an edge, and other functionalities. As such; armor, weaponry, and tools in Katea are commonly made from this. Such items have the advantage over steel in being relatively inexpensive. They have the disadvantage that -when damaged or suffering from wear- they are impossible to repair and must instead be replaced. Scale Scale is hard to harvest and even harder to work with, meaning that only a small handful of armorers make use of it. Still, despite this fact Tarrasque Scale Armor has entered the popular imagination of sentient beings the world over as it evokes the Tarrasque's unnatural durability. Extremely light for it's hardness and more flexible than bone, scale is prized by the city's shipwrights, used for the construction of grand warships and fast cutters alike. To capitalise on this unique advantage over traditional techniques, the export of Scale is punishable by blinding and the amputation of both legs and arms. Consequently, the best ships are made in Katean. Alchemy and Medicine Katean is the home of alchemy, and it's sciences surpass the herbalists of any other nation in the world. Rather than having to search for rare herbs and ingredients, the Tarrasque is an endless source of rare elements, humours and chemicals. With this secular understanding and the work of brave surgeons willing to commit the crime of Mortal Dissection in the name of science, Katean learns and forgets more medicine each year than scholars of other lands have ever known. Regeneration The Tarrasque defies secular laws of physics; it perpetually regenerates, healing any harm, while taking in nothing. Whether this is a chaos-born mutation, a blessing of gods older than humanity, a freak of natural biology or something else entirely is hotly debated among scholars. In order to make sure the Tarrasque remained a captive, the gods ordered the constant maiming of the beast; hamstringing, blinding and lobotomy were considered the bare essentials. Since then, the commercial greed of Katean and the High Lords has fueled the growth of Katean, the world's largest and most prosperous city, by harvesting the beast for osseous matter, meat and alchemical reagents. Corrupted biome Flushing the excess of blood, meat and bile down the river Tagus has corrupted the land; flora has fed for millennia on the blood of the beast, and have become twisted, and Dire-beasts have become killed all their mundane competitors. To avoid a similar fate, citizens of Katean who eat the enormously abundant tarrasque meat cook it until it is almost black, treat it with herbs, and make sure that any water they drink is purified by alchemists or imported, while the desperate drink rainwater and snowmelt. The only creatures that are seemingly unchanged by the Tarrasque's flesh are the Ankhegs, which fill a biological niche not unlike fleas. Aetherial reflection The torture of the crippled Tarrasque has stirred the surrounding Aether into a frenzy, causing spiritual corruption, mutation, rogue magic and Wytchstone to abound around Katean. While more dangerous and unpredictable, the aetherial activity has made magic more powerful here, and far more individuals capable of magic are born here than anywhere else in the world. Demons reflect it's fractured mind, and so there are many more brutal destroyers and creatures of endless hunger than the subtle seducers that bring damnation to other lands. The magical aura and relative abundance of wytchstone has given the city a strong magical tradition, with 8 sanctioned magical colleges, as well as being the recent birthplace of the forbidden Necromancy.